@golfyankeesierra
To all those people placing high hopes on ACARS, you probably don't know what it is..
It is only the datalink itself, just the system 447delivering a message, it doesn't make the message.
Messages can be directed (amongst others) at ATC, the airlines operations control or the technical department and it can be used to access external providers, for instance to get wx reports.
It can be uplinked or downlinked an can be automatically or manually.
Now the messages from AF447 originated from the ACMS (look it up) that reacted on several active faults that it sensed. ACMS downlinked those faults automatically to AF's tech department as it is apparently programmed to do.
That works in my airline the same but these are usually customer options, so who knows how Malaysian has set that up or what system they have in place.
I am afraid you misinterpreted my post or deliberately tried to show your self-proclaimed ACARS "knowledge" to this community disqualifying my statement.
Where did I suggest in my post that I have hopes in ACARS?
Where did I suggest in my post that "downlink" is synonym of manual transmission? I simply didn't.
The aircraft is constantly in contact with the CPS through a bi-directional
automatic transmission (uplinks/downlinks) based on "tech acks". The downlinks from the aircraft contain, among the others, positional data. This has nothing to do with manual messages and nothing in my post suggested this.
Anyway you cannot conclude anything from the absence of downlink reports.
Yes I can. If the CPS does not receive downlinks from the aircraft for a certain period of time, a failure report is automatically originated and sent to dispatchers (among others). What I tried to explain in my post is that, unlike the case of AF447, we do not have the logs here, only the word of the Malaysian Civil Aviation General stating that "no malfunction ACARS" were received. It would be interesting to analyze such logs, but they were not released so far.
And for the conspiracy theorists, in my company it is not allowed to sent any sensitive information (like Creditcard numbers of customers) because it is easily intercepted (Get your free ACARS decoder on the 'net).
Would be something if it turns out afterwards that MAS withholds information.
Don't think so!
Again, where did I suggest a conspiracy theory?